It's a strange line to start this article with, given the article's title, but I believe I should make my stance towards the company clear, as I've always disliked Microsoft, as well as their tyrannical policies.

I've never bought the first XBox, nor the XBox 360, I've played them both, and I've seen enough to convince me that they weren't worth the money in my opinion. I also considered their XBL subscription to be nonsense at best.

This is of course, not mentioning their extremely idiotic approach with indie developers, who have almost unanimously agreed that their policies are terrible, with Team Meat stating that developing for them was a "mind f**k".

With that being said, I have to state that it's hard to be objective at times, especially when the entire gaming community is being biased and bashing the XBox One not for the sake of Microsoft's policies, but just for the sake of bashing them.

To talk about the XBox One, we have to first talk about it's debut, which was a pathetic joke of a conference on Microsoft's behalf. The new XBox debuted with the name XBox One, despite the face that there was a first Xbox before it, and the conference was all about everything except gaming, and it didn't even look like a gaming console at the time.

At this point in time, my hatred for Microsoft was at an all time high, there was no way on earth this console would appeal to people like me, it doesn't have the games that a type of gamer like me likes to play, it's not home to Metal Gear Solid 5, Kingdom Hearts 3, or new original IPs.

And even if a great game comes out on the XBox exclusive, it's almost a certainty that it'll be out on Windows shortly after (such as Alan Wake).

Then E3 came and went, while watching SONY's conference I was at awe, not because they said the opposite of what Microsoft said regarding DRM and online connectivity, Nintendo never even got near that topic, and never considered forcing their gamers to be always connected or not sell their games freely.

What captivated me was, the fact that SONY listened consistently to it's fans, and offered a (slightly) stronger console for a $100 less, and that's amazing news.

Everyone stated that SONY won the E3 conference hands down, and I agreed, but I wanted to see the MS conference first before considering that matter as a done deal in my head.

I decided to watch the MS press conference, and keep an open mind. And in all honesty, I was quite shocked to admit it, but while MS might've lost in terms of the console reveal, they won in terms of games. The shock came from the fact Microsoft had more original IPs, and more exclusives on the Xbox One than SONY did on the PS4.

Here's a list I made up of all the E3 games that I thought were worth mentioning on the list for both consoles:

I'd like to apologize for the quality of the pic on the XBox One side, but I think the rest of the pic is apparent.

The first thing you'd notice is that the XBox One has more exclusives, the reason for this is quite simple, four of the most important AAA games that were thought to be exclusive to the PS4, are now multi-platform. These games are The Witcher 3, Metal Gear Solid 5, Kingdom Hearts 3, and Final Fantasy 15.

Microsoft basically convinced developers to take many important games exclusive to SONY and publish it on it's console, quite an efficient business strategy. It should also be noted that 4 of the exclusive PS4 games I've added are indie games that are also available on PC, meanwhile the only XBox One indie game on the list is Below, and it's exclusive only on XBox One.

In terms of games, it's fair to say that Microsoft actually won at E3, but the price of the PS4 was definitely the catalyst to SONY winning E3, that alongside their firm stance towards consumer rights, and the belief that customers should have freedom in selling their games and playing with no internet connectivity.

Apart from the price, Microsoft has has completely reversed their policies, stating that you no longer have to be online, and you can sell your games if you want.

Of course, knowing the internet and it's fanyboys, instead of most people applauding a company's decision to back up from a serious mistake, they accuse it of surrendering to SONY, and that what they did was a massive fail.

On behalf of the internet, this is hypocrisy at it's finest.

In his article, Adam stated that Microsoft is responding to the backlash and anger of the community is respectable, yet stated that "the past isn't so easy forgettable".

I completely agree with that, the past is never forgotten when some company tries to screw people over, but to pinpoint this accusation on Microsoft and ONLY Microsoft is preposterous. Yes, Microsoft tried holding the community for ransom with their policies, but Microsoft is not only not the first company in the big three to do this, it's actually the last.

In 2013 MS tried to hold us for ransom with the XBox One, but SONY has done this for 3 complete generations of consoles. The PS One, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, and even the PSP were comically over priced, considerably more than their competition. SONY were abysmal in their pricing, and they did that because they knew they could get away with it because they were the leaders in the console market for many years, they reached the point where they thought they were practically untouchable, and ended up putting the PS3 for a criminal $600, and we all know how that went down.

After the failure with their pricing, SONY did a 180 of it's own, and changed the price of the console, and that lead to them selling more consoles.

SONY is now the best company in terms of consumer rights, but they were horrendous back when they were at the top, because they knew they could get away with it, until they pushed it too far. They learned from that mistake and now are the leader in terms of customer services, thanks to their amazing PS Plus service.

Nintendo did a similar strategy with the 3DS, pricing it at an overpriced $250 because the DS is the most successful handheld of all time, Nintendo thought overpricing the handheld wouldn't matter and that it would sell anyways, and the 3DS was almost a goner until Nintendo resurrected by making a full 180 and dropping the price to make the handheld more appealing for buyers, and that was enough for them to sell more 3DS handhelds than they could handle.

No one accused Nintendo or SONY of surrendering, even though their strategies were no less preposterous than that or Microsoft, and definitely no one stated that now we know the true face of SONY or Nintendo. It was quite the opposite actually, people stated that they were both brave and brilliant, taking the necessary decisions to ensure that their systems sell and keep on living.

Microsoft avoided their problem before releasing their console, while Nintendo and SONY weren't so quick to respond, yet the internet and the amazing number of fanboys just kept on insulting Microsoft even more, stating that the only reason they did that wasn't for gamers, but because of the competition.

This was exactly what Nintendo and SONY did with their consoles, and if Nintendo should announce a price drop for the Wii U, it's definitely because of the competition as well, that doesn't make them evil, that simply means they are making a correct business move that is influenced by a competitive market, this is how the industry works.

To state that "Microsoft has embodied the cold, heartless, company persona" is a bit unfair, considering how SONY did this very strategy for over a decade, and they got away with it.

In fact, SONY changed their approach after a massive failure, Microsoft avoided the failure entirely, this should be something that Microsoft should be commended for, I was actually quite impressed with their decision.

Yes, I fully understand that the internet will still bash the Xbox One, calling it the XBox One-Eighty and the like, but with a brave turn like that, Microsoft are simply a price drop away from not only changing the odds completely in the States, but also convince me to consider purchasing one of their consoles for the first time.

What Microsoft did might be called backing down, it might be called surrendering to SONY, it's gonna be called a lot of things that are complete nonsense, but when we think objectively, they did nothing more preposterous than what both their competition did way before they did it. Besides, would you have preferred that the XBox One remain with terrible policies? What good would that do for consumers?

With all that said, I still fully believe that SONY will sell more consoles than it's competitors this upcoming generation, as they know how to please their customers, while Microsoft and Nintendo are still trying hard to figure things out.